Young Queer Christians Are Going on a New Kind of Pilgrimage
After feeling cast out of their old houses of worship, religious-leaning LGBTQ young people seek welcoming pews, even if they have to travel
Delaney Schueler grew up in the church. She led worship at her local nondenominational parish in Ohio for seven years. She attended Belmont University in Nashville, a Christian school dedicated to faith-informed education. But when she graduated, she had to step away from religion altogether.
“I was a late bloomer gay,” she says. “Now, I've been out for about three years, and I wasn’t ready [to approach the church again] for quite a while.”
Everything changed last Easter, when Schueler traveled to California with her girlfriend and took a leap of faith. “We wanted to go to church on Easter Sunday, but we didn't know where,” she says. “We wanted to make sure it was affirming. Visiting California, we felt like we'd have a really good chance of finding one.” On the website for Carlsbad’s Pilgrim Church, Shuler was immediately awed by the rainbow logo and welcoming words. “I just knew we'd feel safe walking in,” she says. “And we did.”
Churches like Pilgrim have become destinations for queer travelers seeking safe worship spaces. And more are popping up every day. The GALIP Foundation tracks queer Christian churches worldwide, and they now list over 9,500 gay-affirming churches on their website — more than triple the number compared to when the organization started tracking the data in 2003. The LGBTQ welcoming revival within these holy spaces is growing.
On TikTok, searching “queer church” pulls up a digital atlas full of videos from young queer travelers. Thousands of young queer people are embarking on these pilgrimages, even if it means flying across the country for a holiday service or crossing their city every Sunday.
There’s a reason they’re seeking out these sacred spaces. Many queer Americans grew up ashamed of their sexuality and “burned by churches,” Schueler says. Her family and friends often invite her to Nashville churches that aren’t totally accepting. “I’ll just get, ‘Well, they’ve never really said anything, so that’s probably a good thing,’” she says. “And for me, that’s not good enough. I want a place where I’ll feel welcome without hesitation.”
The moment Schueler stepped into Pilgrim Church, she saw queer families huddled in open pews and praying openly about their gender-affirming surgeries. “That's life changing stuff, right there,” she says. “To feel accepted in a place of faith where that weighs so heavily on people's literal souls.”
Below, four people involved in the queer-affirming Christian movement, from religious leaders to churchgoers, share their experiences discovering where they fit in in this new landscape.
“The first place I felt normal.”
Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail has committed her life to creating a similar space at Jubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. Rather than the long cassock in black or white typical for Episcopal priests, McManus-Dail completes her look with a bright rainbow stole and a nametag with she/her pronouns. She estimates that since 2022, more than 600 people have come to her church for the first time.
“I would say about 25 percent of those folks are from the Austin area, but I would say the other 75 percent are folks who travel in from out of town or out of the country,” she says. “Sometimes we are the first or only inclusive church they've experienced.”
Her pews, she says, are filled with young people who are “hungry to find spiritual meaning, but want to know that they will be safe when they seek it.” Travelers come from as far as Australia and the U.K. One gay couple traveled from Puerto Rico just to bask in the solidarity and friendship of Jubilee.
A 2020 report found 5.3 million queer adults in the U.S. still consider religion to be important to them. (Christianity makes up the bulk of religious affiliation among those LGBTQ adults in the U.S., but queer-accepting synagogues, mosques, and temples also serve as vital sanctuaries.) Spaces like Jubilee have become even more essential for that massive audience amid the far-right’s growing hostility towards the LGBTQ community.
President Donald Trump has tried to stifle the queer community nearly every day since he took office. Conservatives across the country have moved to overturn marriage equality, cut critical funding to lifesaving resources, and functionally erase the existence of transgender people. The latest annual FBI crime report revealed that hate crimes against queer people remain at record highs. As of this spring, nearly half of Christians approve of Trump’s presidency, including nearly three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants.
With this rise in intolerance, a growing number of Americans have started walking away from traditional churches. In 2016, when Trump first took office, about 30 percent of those fleeing organized religion cited the condemnation of same-sex relationships. Last election cycle, that percentage jumped to nearly half, with the majority being young people.
For McManus-Dail, queer churches are an act of resistance. “I think we are growing, and I see more and more queer-celebratory and queer-affirming churches growing,” she says. “There’s a lot of fear. But underneath that, there’s a lot of hope and determination to not let Christianity be determined by Christian nationalism.”
Through interactions with other queer parishioners, McManus-Dail and her colleagues have built a nationwide network connecting prayer groups in Ohio to safe houses in Arkansas and beyond. “The biggest thing I hear from people who worship with us every single Sunday — folks who live in Austin and also folks who travel — is this is the first place I felt normal,” she says.
"People in their corner"
Sometimes the simple fact of queer presence at these churches can create a ripple effect. When Caroline McCleary moved with her wife to Upper Sandusky, Ohio, it was a major culture shock to be a “blue dot” in an extremely red small town. McCleary was nervous to speak freely about her sexuality, let alone attend church. But a year later, she and her wife kissed at a real altar.
“We got to have our church wedding,” she says. “Our church has set up at Pride, the very first Pride that our town here ever had.”
While some churches in town claim that all are welcome, McCleary says that couldn’t be farther from the truth. She says locals cannot even volunteer in children’s services “if you are queer or have family members who are queer.”
But since she and her wife joined the church, she's noticed a change: Four other queer couples have joined. Some came from rural areas where they only saw Pride flags on TV.
“These spaces are important because people need to know that there are people in their corner, regardless of what the outside world may have to say, or the person on Fox News touting hatred constantly,” she says.
“God loves me”
Ciarra Jones, a queer theologian who studied at Harvard, says that there’s a growing segment of young progressive religious people seeking out new communities.
“Doing what I do now, 10 years ago, would be impossible,” she says. Like many other queer people, Jones grew up feeling like “God hates queerness.” She spent the majority of her teenage years denying her sexuality, trying to “pray the gay away.” Then she got to college, fell in love with a woman, and let her relationship with the church fade into the background.
She found her way back to God after reading Black queer scholars and realizing there’s a connection between religious acceptance and health. In fact, a review of 32 separate scientific studies suggests that spirituality, faith, prayer, and church-based social support are associated with reduced stress.
Jones says too many queer people still attend churches that don’t embrace them wholeheartedly. “I never want to tell queer people just abandon your community, but I do want queer people to see their bodies and their minds and identities as sacred, and consider what spiritual environments they continue to revisit,” she says, adding that queer-affirming churches see queerness as “divine.”
“They feel like family”
Nate Peters had his first kiss with a man when he turned 30. Deep down, a part of him always knew that he was gay. But both of his parents were pastors, and his internalized homophobia and shame felt inescapable.
From a young age, Peters’s parents steered him away from anything that might corrupt him, restricting what he watched and cancelling a family trip to Disney because the company was pro-LGBTQ. They believed they were sent by God to proselytize, so throughout his childhood they moved from state to state in an RV to spread the word.
As a teen, Peters couldn’t help but look at photos of men on the internet. When his mother confronted him, he was forced to confess.
“I was just dead inside,” Peters says. “They all looked at me with fear and shame. It’s still one of the most tangible, painful, terrifying memories I have.”
Over the course of his young adulthood, Peters hopped around from one therapist to another. Some of these sessions he described as borderline conversion therapy. Members of his congregation prayed to “cast out his demons.” He attended weekly meetups with other queer men to try to suppress “temptations.” He prayed that he would be “healed” and buried his true feelings deep inside.
But he couldn’t run from himself forever. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Peters had a lot of time to reflect. And he finally got up the courage to go on a date with a man.
Today, his relationship with God is complicated. But it’s been life-changing to discover progressive churches. Peters has traveled across the country to explore these holy spaces and even recently relocated to New York in order to be closer to them.
“I remember just being there and having someone say, like, everyone is welcome, no matter your sexuality or faith,” he says, recalling his first visit to a progressive church. “I felt it so deeply I started sobbing.”
In his celebrated podcast, I Tried to Be Straight, Peters interviews progressive teachers across the country. And he’s learning to finally be himself.
“I do still feel God sometimes,” he says. “And I still see him through the lens of my faith. The progressive church and these progressive leaders — they feel like family.”